{"id":467595,"date":"2026-05-04T08:13:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T08:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/467595\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T08:13:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T08:13:11","slug":"foreign-online-activity-during-fuel-protests-canary-in-coal-mine-says-fg-minister-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/467595\/","title":{"rendered":"Foreign online activity during fuel protests \u2018canary in coal mine\u2019, says FG Minister \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Online activity by overseas actors during Ireland\u2019s recent fuel protests<\/a> was a \u201ccanary in the coal mine\u201d for the political classes, Minister of State Neale Richmond<\/a> has said. <\/p>\n

The Fine Gael<\/a> TD, who is a junior Minister at the Department of Foreign Affairs<\/a>, said the protests grew organically and were motivated by genuine concerns about the cost of living, but were also \u201cused by outside and malevolent actors\u201d. <\/p>\n

Pointing to social-media content from British far-right figure Tommy Robinson<\/a>, one-time Donald Trump<\/a> adviser Steve Bannon<\/a> and \u201cknown American right-wing quasi-conspiracy theorists\u201d, he said there had been \u201cpolitical opportunism\u201d to push a certain agenda.<\/p>\n

He said the content spread by online activists was a \u201cfundamental threat to the political centre\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Dublin Rathdown<\/a> TD said narratives about funding for Ukraine<\/a>, migration and \u201cthe woke agenda\u201d were spread online and linked to the protests.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe as a political class of all shades and none have to see it as in many ways the canary in the coal mine. We can\u2019t be quiet on this, we have to speak out, we have to make the case for the centre.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that during the fuel protests there was an attempt by \u201coutside actors to come in and piggyback on events that are happening and using it as a platform to drive their narrative\u201d.<\/p>\n

Robinson and Bannon \u201cchampioning an issue and trying to claim it,\u201d he said, \u201cthat has to set off alarm bells, not just for the Government<\/a>, not just for the political establishment, but all parties and all people who are involved in public discourse\u201d. <\/p>\n

Richmond was speaking as the Hope and Courage Collective, an NGO, published research which found that the far right does not enjoy broad public support in Ireland but was \u201cshaping the conversation\u201d, with \u201cinfluence exercised through narrative and political pressure\u201d. <\/p>\n

It argued that political discourse was \u201cincreasingly influenced by far-right framing\u201d, saying migration was \u201cconsistently positioned as a problem to be managed, contained or reduced\u201d.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Could Independent Ireland grow on back of fuel price protests?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The report was published in the same week in which T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris<\/a> justified changes to supports for Ukrainian refugees on the grounds that the system was \u201cnot fair\u201d and \u201ctoo expensive\u201d, and Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> linked homelessness<\/a> with immigration<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Richmond denied Coalition leaders were leaning on a right-wing framing of immigration, and defended Government policy changes and statements on the topic. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe do have to be able to present facts … that shouldn\u2019t be seen as some sort of political agenda,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

There was, he added, a risk of significant disruption from protests during Ireland\u2019s forthcoming presidency of the European Union. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re going to see protests again during our EU presidency we have to learn how to react to them quicker, clearer and better both in terms of communication and action,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cOne hundred people can cause a lot of disruption in a short space of time. Twenty vehicles can shut down a road or a major artery. So we do have to look to how do we respond to allow free and fair protest absolutely, but to make sure … [it] doesn\u2019t come to the detriment of society.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said other European countries had seen outside influence during moments of social upheaval or elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Online activity by overseas actors during Ireland\u2019s recent fuel protests was a \u201ccanary in the coal mine\u201d for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,8104,356,205317,18,13,14,553,189695,6,24081,19,56,17,11,12,15,16,5765,147220,5,44,1114,140614,34657,7,8,2264],"class_list":["post-467595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-department-of-foreign-affairs","tag-donald-trump","tag-dublin-rathdown-constituency","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-fine-gael","tag-fuel-protests","tag-headlines","tag-homeless-crisis","tag-ie","tag-immigration","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-micheal-martin","tag-neale-richmond","tag-news","tag-simon-harris","tag-social-media","tag-steve-bannon","tag-tommy-robinson","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-ukraine-crisis"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}